1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to medical image analysis, and more particularly to a system and method for a visualization tool for reporting tumors.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Lung cancer is a leading cause of cancer death in the United States. Averaging over all diagnosed cases of lung cancer, the mean 5-years survival rate is only 15%. However, for those specific lung cancers, which are diagnosed in an early stage, there is a much more favorable 5-year survival rate of up to 72%.
Recently, much attention has been given to lung cancer screening an diagnosis with computed tomography (CT). Multi-slice CT machines are capable of scanning the entire lung volume at very high resolution in a single breath-hold, allowing for the detection of very small to large sized nodules.
Technologies exist for automatic nodule segmentation and detection from lung CT data. The locations of nodules are detected. Given a nodule location, the voxels that belong to the nodule are segmented from the volume data. It is natural to have a global 3-dimensional (3D) summary of detected and segmented nodules. This should be an integral part of the reporting system for lung nodules.
Previous reporting schemes use very little visualization. On a graph of the lung mark the locations of the nodules. It is ineffective and static, lacking 3D information. Further, only the locations are marked. There is no information about the shape and relative sizes of the nodules.
Therefore, a need exists for a system and method for a visualization tool providing location and shape information in a 3D display.